Tag: acadia

How popular is the baby name Acadia in the United States right now? How popular was it historically? Find out using the graph below! Plus, see baby names similar to Acadia and check out all the blog posts that mention the name Acadia.

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Number of Babies Named Acadia

Posts that Mention the Name Acadia

When the NPS was created on August 25, 1916, there were only 35 national parks and monuments. (The world’s first, Yellowstone, had been established in 1872.)

Nowadays the agency oversees 411 units. These units are located in the 50 states and beyond, and include national monuments (82), national historic sites (78), national parks (59), national historical parks (50), national memorials (30), national battlefields (11), national seashores (10), national lakeshores (4), national scenic trails (3), and more.

Let’s celebrate the upcoming centenary with over 100 baby names that pay tribute to the national parks specifically:

The derivation of Kenai is unknown, but it could come from either Dena’ina Athabascan (“big flat” or “two big flats and river cut-back” or “trees and brush in a swampy marsh”), Russian (“flat barren land”), or Iniut (“black bear”).

Back in June, while planning a family camping trip, I posted about the name Acadia. Now that we’re back from that camping trip, I have a few more names to talk about.

Prudence

For the first half of the trip we stayed at Prince Edward Island National Park in Canada. At our campground, the bilingual poison ivy signs emphasized the words “Caution” (in English) and “Prudence” (in French). Prudence is a vocabulary word in both languages, of course, but these signs gave me the impression that it’s more commonly used in French, which in turn made me wonder how French speakers feel about the name Prudence. Does it sound weird to them? (As weird as the name Caution would sound to English speakers?) Hm.

Sophus

While doing some genealogical research in one of PEI’s many graveyards, I came across the name Sophus. It belonged to Daniel Sophus Edmonds, 1877-1900. Sophus has the same root as the super-popular Sophia. Both come from the ancient Greek word for “wisdom.”

Hopewell

Halfway through the trip, while traveling back to the U.S. from Canada, we stopped at Hopewell Rocks on the Bay of Fundy in New Brunswick. As I was checking out the rock formations, I idly wondered how many people in the U.S. were named Hopewell. Not many, turns out. I found only a few dozen people named Hopewell, none born since 1980. The total might be as high as 100 if middle names are included.

Hopewell Rocks at 1 pm on July 30, 2014(halfway between low tide and high tide)

Waldron

For the second half of the trip we stayed at Acadia National Park in Maine. The park has hundreds of miles of hiking trails. One of the men who created and mapped these trails was Waldron Bates (1856-1909). He also developed a distinctive type of cairn, unique to Acadia, known as the Bates cairn. The name Waldron, while rare, has appeared a couple dozen times on the national baby name list.

Grosvenor

Acadia’s Jordan Pond Gate Lodge (1932), which resembles a 16th-century French hunting lodge, was commissioned by John D. Rockefeller Jr. and designed by prominent New York architect Grosvenor “Grove” Atterbury. No doubt Grove’s given name was inspired by the surname Grosvenor, which comes from the French phrase le Gros Veneur, meaning “the chief huntsman.” Rockefeller later donated the Gate Lodge — and the 45 miles of rustic carriage roads it protected — to the park.

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These were probably the 5 most interesting names I spotted during the trip, but there were plenty of others. (Lucy, Maud, Montgomery, and Anne, for instance, were names I saw repeatedly at Green Gables on PEI.)

Have you taken a vacation this summer? If so, did you spot any interesting names while away?

My family’s going on a camping trip this summer, and one of the places we’ll be visiting is Acadia National Park in Maine.

The park, which is nearly 100 years old, was created in 1919 as Lafayette National Park. The original name was inspired by the Marquis de Lafayette.

In 1929, the park was renamed Acadia. This name was taken from the storied French colony of Acadia (1604-1713) that included parts of Maine, Quebec, the Maritime provinces. The settlement name can likely be traced back to Florentine explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano (1485-1528), who had used the ancient Greek place name “Arcadia” (R included) to describe the Atlantic coast of Virginia/Maryland.

Now for the big question: Has Acadia ever been used as a baby name?

Yup — the baby name Acadia has been appearing on the national baby name list since the 1980s.

Here’s how many U.S. babies have been named Acadia since the year 2000:

2013: 47 baby girls named Acadia (6 in OH)

2012: 45 baby girls named Acadia (6 in NY)

2011: 40 baby girls named Acadia (5 in ME, 5 in MA)

2010: 38 baby girls named Acadia

2009: 40 baby girls named Acadia (5 in ME)

2008: 37 baby girls named Acadia

2007: 37 baby girls named Acadia (7 in NY)

2006: 42 baby girls named Acadia (7 in NY, 5 in ME)

2005: 32 baby girls named Acadia

2004: 30 baby girls named Acadia (5 in ME)

2003: 37 baby girls named Acadia (6 in ME)

2002: 17 baby girls named Acadia

2001: 22 baby girls named Acadia

2000: 28 baby girls named Acadia

The state-by-state data, which is admittedly incomplete, suggests that the name is most popular in Maine. In second and third place are New York and Massachusetts.

There’s also a vehicle called the GMC Acadia, but the car’s introduction circa 2007 doesn’t seem to have affected name usage.

(These last two points remind me of the name Sedona, which has been given to a lot of Arizona babies and also happens to be a car name.)